Pack Witch (Captured Souls Book 1)

by Brenna Clarke

  I slowly lowered myself down onto the seat. She cozied up and linked her arm through mine. “Mmm. Your energy is strong. Perhaps even more than your father’s.”

  I ignored that. I didn’t want to think of her cozied up with my father. It made me question more what their relationship had been. Her beautiful golden hair, lithe body, and porcelain face with high cheekbones and full lips. I couldn’t imagine any man not finding her irresistible.

  “I knew you’d come back. We witches fair so much better in groups. We can protect one another,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” I said quietly.

  “No. He tried hard to keep you from all of it. A disservice, really.”

  “Elizabeth,” Mr. Jenkins said in warning.

  She rolled her eyes at him, and abruptly changed the subject. “I’m very curious about your friend outside. It’s so odd to keep company with wolves,” she said. She tossed some of her golden hair over one of her narrow shoulders.

  “Is it?”

  “Of course,” she said with a laugh. “We cursed them, after all.”

  I opened my mouth but snapped it shut. There was so much to learn, but I couldn’t focus on all that right now. She clearly didn’t want to get into why I needed them, but I didn’t have a choice.

  “I would love to have a conversation about that someday soon.”

  “What is it you need?” Mr. Jenkins said. He dropped some ink blue liquid into his mortar by way of a dropper. What was he making?

  “I have a friend in trouble.”

  “The werewolf you spoke of before? Or is that him outside?”

  “No. Well, yes. He’s in trouble too. But my other friend is in more trouble than I thought.”

  “What is your relationship to him?” Elizabeth held a lock of my hair between her fingers. She rolled it around her index finger absentmindedly. I wasn’t in the habit of having people play with my hair. My mom didn’t even really do that. I tried not to make it weird.

  “I grew up with him.”

  She studied me closely.

  “I don’t know how much time he has. I checked my friend, the one who died, and he had the mark. But it seems my other friend, the one who was burned, he has the hunter’s mark too.”

  Mr. Jenkins sighed. He set down his dropper and put his hands on the edge of the wooden table that stood in front of him. “I’m afraid it’s too late to help him.”

  “Why? There must be something I can do? I don’t have a lot of time. I guess it had been months before the hunters came for my friend that died, after he…well…after he…”

  “After he what, dear?” Mr. Jenkins asked.

  “I guess he maybe made a deal with a warlock or a demon or the devil. I don’t know. I only know he gave up his soul. And now they’re going to come for my other friend too.”

  They gasped in unison.

  “Warlocks and witches don’t barter for souls,” Elizabeth said as she let go of my hair. “It was definitely a demon. They often pretend to be like us. Real witches stay in the shadows. Fake ones make our presence known and people assume we can do things for them, like make wishes or help them fall in love or find luck, blah, blah, blah.” She rolled her eyes. “Demons use what humans know about us to find people desperate for things. They take your soul and give you what you want. For a short time.”

  “There must be something I can do?”

  Mr. Jenkins cleared his throat and then thrummed his fingers on the table. “You can’t save him. It’s done.”

  I wouldn’t accept that. “He’s in danger because he gave his soul to protect someone else. What if I did the same? To protect him?”

  His eyes went wide with horror. “You cannot do that.”

  Elizabeth patted my hand and then left it covering mine. She was rather affectionate, it seemed. “He must mean a great deal to you.”

  I nodded and swallowed hard. “Yes. He was—is—a very important person to me.”

  “I see.”

  Mr. Jenkins shook his head. His eyes locked with Elizabeth’s.

  I glanced back and forth between them as a wordless conversation seemed to pass.

  “What is it?”

  “No,” he said firmly to his niece.

  “Carl,” she said, in a tone that my mother often spoke in when she was angry with me.

  “No.”

  “What am I missing?” I glanced back and forth between them, searching their faces for clues. Was everyone lying to me?

  “You tell the girl or I will,” Elizabeth said sternly.

  “Tell me what?” I demanded.

  “I made a promise.” Mr. Jenkins folded his arms over his middle.

  “Please tell me what’s going on?”

  Elizabeth sighed. “You can’t break a deal with a demon.”

  I slumped in my seat.

  “However…”

  I perked up, felt hope rise in my chest.

  “They don’t collect. Hunters do. So…”

  “Hunters collect souls.” I said quietly, musing to myself. Then to Elizabeth, “Why can’t demons?”

  She frowned. “It’s not that they can’t. They just don’t. If a demon killed a human they made a deal with, it would nullify the contract. I mean, why would anyone make a deal if a demon could just turn around and collect a moment later. They have to let the human’s life play out.”

  “So demons are fair?” I said with sarcasm.

  She grinned. “In a manner of speaking. They recruit humans to kill the people they have a contract with. They just can’t kill them themselves. But with your friend, well, he’s supernatural. Which is why they made hunters. When a hunter comes for you, there is no outrunning them, no hiding. It’s rather ingenious, actually.”

  “So what you’re saying, is if I find a hunter, that maybe I can convince them not to hurt my friend?”

  “That’s enough!” Mr. Jenkins said.

  A banging sounded from the front of the store. I startled, and Elizabeth and I stood. We strode to the front where Rex threw a rock at the door. Clearly, he wasn’t happy about waiting. I opened the door and stuck my head out. Elizabeth propped her hands on her hips. “Please tell your friend, I can increase the spell’s perimeter if he can’t behave civilly.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.” I turned to him. “Rex, please. I almost have what we need.”

  “You’re safe?”

  “Of course, she’s safe,” Elizabeth bellowed.

  Rex snarled.

  “Five minutes. Please.”

  Reluctantly, he gave me a stiff nod. He wouldn’t wait much longer without causing a problem. I couldn’t think about how that would play out.

  I pulled my head back inside and shut the door. Elizabeth linked elbows with me and we returned to the back room. Mr. Jenkins had sat down in an antique chair in the corner with a velvet seat and back.

  “I need to find a hunter,” I announced.

  Mr. Jenkins shook his head. “We can’t help you there.”

  “She’s asking for help. If you don’t want to help her, then you have to tell her why. Her father was part of our coven. We have a duty to help her.”

  “We are helping her!” he snapped.

  “Please sit down,” Elizabeth said.

  I did as she asked, and I waited with bated breath. I had no idea what she wanted to tell me, but I knew it wasn’t good. I also knew it had something to do with my father, which caused an ache to begin in my gut. I tried so hard not to think of him.

  “When you were born, your father brought you here. You were so beautiful. You had a light around you, and it was so strong. You have it still. It’s more than your father’s, which made you vulnerable.”

  “Vulnerable to what?” I asked.

  “You see, the first time your father came to us, he asked for help. He wanted us to block his magic. He couldn’t do it alone. We didn’t know him, so we knew it must have been important for him to ask strangers. A witch doesn’t block their magic unless they abso
lutely have to.”

  “What do you mean block?”

  “Well, it keeps you and your magic hidden.”

  “How?”

  “If someone was looking for you, they could search for you by looking for your magic. All they would need is something personal of yours, something with a…scent? It’s kind of like a witch phone number.” She smiled, as if proud of herself. “Witches don’t hide themselves unless they’re hiding from someone really dangerous…someone magical. It’s very odd, because generally speaking witches accept and protect one another. There is a sisterhood between all of us.”

  “Who was he hiding from?”

  “Well, we didn’t know. Helping him didn’t hurt anyone. There was no bad karma attached, so we helped him.”

  “And you never asked?” I said.

  “No. Not then. We assumed he had a very good reason,” he said.

  “But later?”

  Mr. Jenkins ran his hands through his hair. “When he asked us to hide you.”

  My jaw fell, and I stared at him. I was confused and surprised and I didn’t know how to feel. This felt big. Something I should have known about and yet, my father had never mentioned this once.

  “Who was he hiding us from? A dark witch?”

  Elizabeth waved that off. “No, very few dark witches exist. I mean, there are some, but they don’t target other witches. Not usually. He was hiding from…well, he was hiding from…”

  The answer came to me quickly. “Hunters.” I let out a deep sigh.

  “Yes.”

  “Did he make a deal with the devil too?”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “I couldn’t say. It’s possible. All I know is he didn’t want either of you found. If you go looking for them, I can’t say what will happen.”

  “It’s not safe,” Mr. Jenkins said finally.

  “But you can help me find them? Maybe stop them from collecting Noah?” I asked, daring to be hopeful.

  Elizabeth shook her head. “No, sweetheart, but…” She took my hand and squeezed lightly. “We can remove the spell. And then they can find you.”

  Seventeen

  I took more than five minutes, but Rex didn’t cause any more commotion outside. I think he could tell I wasn’t in danger, and he knew these witches were the only possible help we had to fix a very bad situation.

  Elizabeth turned the sign to closed, and I gave a nod to Rex as we headed to the basement of the store. He didn’t look happy, but he shook his head, leaned back against his car and took out a cigarette, instead of arguing with me.

  Down the narrow staircase, I followed Elizabeth and Mr. Jenkins. The light above us had burned out at some point. At the bottom of the stairs, Mr. Jenkins yanked on a string, and the space lit up. “Wow.” I took a few steps and spun around to examine it. It was just a single open space with the staircase in the center. But all around the room were jars and jars of plants, insects, and animal parts. At least, I hoped they were animal parts. The eyeballs creeped me out especially, not one jar, but four of them. And they were all full. They stared at me like they had a mind behind them. I shivered.

  On the west-facing wall were weapons of all sizes and types. An antique crossbow held my gaze, and I walked toward it. I ran my fingers over the wood. There were imperfections in the grain, like it had come in contact with sharp knives.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Gemma said over my shoulder. Her breath washed over my face as I half-turned to look at her.

  “Very. Where did all these come from?” I touched the ruby butt of a long sword. Mom had given me a knife that had belonged to my father. Was it a coincidence that these witches also kept old weapons? I had to wonder if there was some significance to it.

  “Passed down through the generations. This one,” she pointed to a dagger with gold-colored designs on the handle. “This one killed a king.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded.

  “My dad had a dagger or knife or whatever you want to call it. He left it to me. It looks antique, but I didn’t know if it had any meaning to it.”

  “I’m sure it does. But I couldn’t say what its history is.”

  I deflated just a little. “So, how do we do this?”

  “I’ll get to it,” Mr. Jenkins said. “But, for the record, I want to voice how strongly I urge against this. Your father had his reasons for shielding you. You should trust his reasons were valid.” Carl pushed his glasses up his nose and frowned.

  “I appreciate your concern, but I have to do this.” I’d never have forgiven myself if I stood a chance at saving Rex and Noah and I didn’t try. I also wanted to know more about why Dad hid me. Honestly, asking hunters was probably the only way I would ever get those answers. If that was reckless and stupid, I didn’t care. I couldn’t stay in the dark anymore.

  Mr. Jenkins hobbled over to a butcher-block table. He moved around the room, dropping jars and equipment on the table. When he’d settled behind it, I joined him.

  “We’re making a potion?” I asked.

  “Yes, the shielding spell is complicated, but it’s twin spell, the Reveal, is actually much simpler. Fortunately, only the person who cast the shield can remove it, which was”—he pointed to his chest—“me. However, one of the ingredients for each of those spells is very rare. I still have some millowweed left over from when I did the spell for your father.”

  “Wow. It lasts a long time.”

  “It does,” he said. “But I may never see this plant again in my lifetime. It is from a flower that blooms once every hundred or so years.” He carefully opened a short jar and pulled out a short brown weed with a small dried-up yellow flower on it. The reed was shorter than my finger, and the flower was tinier than a pumpkin seed. “This is just enough to make the potion. We need the whole flower, stalk and all. My father had found it many years ago. Two flowers in total. In addition to being one of the rarest ingredients, it is also one of the most powerful and it can be used to enhance any spell.”

  “Where do you find it?”

  He grinned, and so did Gemma.

  “At the end of a rainbow.”

  I’m sure my amazement showed on my face as I opened my mouth in the shape of an O. I wanted to touch it, but I didn’t dare. I just stared as he threw it into a mortar and ground it up into a film with a little bit of goat’s blood. Though the smell of the goat blood turned my stomach, when it combined with the flower it transformed into something I couldn’t describe. The scent became almost intoxicating, like fresh-baked cookies when you come home from a hard day of work—only the smell was sweeter and earthier.

  Mr. Jenkins took his time, adding an eyeball that made me wretch when he whacked it. I covered my mouth. Juice spilled out from the thin membranous shell like yolk from an egg. “Please tell me that isn’t human.”

  Gemma grinned. “Of course not. We’re not barbarians.”

  “Oh, good.” I heaved a sigh of relief. I didn’t ask what animal it had come from.

  He added several more ingredients, and by the time he’d finished adding everything, the mixture had taken on a thick, liquid consistency, much like a creamy salad dressing. He poured it into a vial. It was still crimson from the blood.

  “You’ll need to drink the whole thing. And well…there may be side effects.”

  This stopped me cold. Not because of the ingredients or the way that it looked. Although, I wasn’t jazzed up about drinking it, and I knew I’d likely have difficulty keeping it down. I was concerned about side effects. They hadn’t said anything about that. It wouldn’t have changed my mind, but I should have known about them before they potentially wasted a flower found at the end of a damn rainbow. I clearly my throat. “Side effects?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  I waited for him to elaborate, but it didn’t seem as if he was going to. “What kind of side effects?”

  He shrugged. “I know the spell, but honestly, I haven’t tried it before.”

  “That makes me a little nervous.” More than a
little, actually.

  “Carl is the best caster this side of Ontario. He doesn’t make errors. The spell will work, but because we haven’t tested it before, we can’t say what those side effects will be.”

  “Like the cost of the spell?”

  She shook her head. “No, we’re just removing something that shouldn’t have been there to begin with. There’s no cost to the world or to nature. Every spell has the potential for side effects. Every person is different. You might have none at all.”

  “What kinds of things are we talking about here? Like a headache? Vomiting?”

  She lifted her shoulders. Oh, well, that was just fantastic.

  “Also…” she began.

  I widened my eyes. There was more?

  Mr. Jenkins spoke instead. “The potion not only shielded you and your father, but it also dampened down your gifts.”

  “I’m weaker than I would have been without the spell?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “Your father was still very strong after the spell. I can’t imagine what he’d been like before. And if you’re stronger than him, you’re going to be very, very powerful. I’m a little excited.” She scrunched up her face and shoulders as she grinned like a schoolgirl.

  I didn’t know how I felt about that. My mother had talked about magic like it was a curse. She made me fear it for most of my life, no matter how much I’d been curious or longed for it. There had been times when I couldn’t control it, and it had almost hurt people. Noah might have burned to death on one occasion if he hadn’t been so quick to heal. He most definitely would have had scars if he’d been a normal human. Now I found out I was stronger than I’d thought. What did that mean for me? I worried I could really hurt someone. Maybe even kill them.

  “It’s not too late to turn back,” Mr. Jenkins said.

  “What if my dad was wrong? What if they don’t look for me? After all this time, they might not care, if they even did in the first place.”

  “Let’s hope that’s true,” Mr. Jenkins said.